In a letter to the editor Bonnie Waldes argues that “FDR was not friend of Jews during World War II.” Since we make no claim to be historians, we suggest Walders and others read the NPR review of the book “FDR and the Jews.”
The review explains that the authors put into context the complexity of the times leading up to WW II.
“In summing up FDR’s record, Breitman and Lichtman write that ‘his compromises might seem flawed in the light of what later generations have learned about the depth and significance of the Holocaust.’ But, they add, ‘Roosevelt reacted more decisively to Nazi crimes against Jews than did any other world leader of his time.’
“‘In some ways, that’s a statement about Roosevelt’s world and the inadequacies of other world leaders at the time,’ Breitman tells NPR’s Robert Siegel. But that comparison tells us something: that the world of the 1930s and the 1940s was a very different place, and that Roosevelt had both political constraints and international constraints that we don’t often think about today.”
In 2013 it is too easy in the comfort of Long Island to oversimplify and ridicule the tough decisions that FDR faced.
